Of Caviar and Kings

For hundreds of years Caviar was reserved exclusively for the courts of Europe. The city of Kerch on the Crimean peninsula was the capital of the ancient Bosphorus Kingdom in 400 B.C. This Kingdom’s copper coins illustrate the sturgeon, as do coins minted around 600 B.C. from ancient Tunisia.

The sturgeon was known as a “royal” fish belonging to kings and feudal lords in Europe and Russia. King Edward III in 1307 declared all the great sturgeons to be his, and it was said that any sturgeon captured in the River Thames above London Bridge belonged to the Lord Mayor of London; all others belonged to the King by royal decree. Henry I is believed to have banned the eating of sturgeon at any table save his own. In his edict of 1675, Tsar Alexei Michailovich declared the exclusive authority of the court to market caviar.

However caviar was not always a favourite food of the kings of France . . . in 1750 Louis XV was visiting the Caspian Sea, tasted caviar – and spat it out immediately!

Types of Caviar

Not all caviar comes from sturgeon – red caviar comes from salmon. Traditionally the roe from 4 species of sturgeon was considered to produce the best caviar: the Beluga, Ossetra, Sevruga and Sterlet.

The small golden eggs of the Sterlet sturgeon were the caviar of the Tzars and was the rarest and, at one time the most cherished of all caviar. So insatiable was the Russian nobility's passion for this golden caviar that the species is all but extinct today.

Beluga is the largest of the sturgeon family (they can reach up to 13 ft), produces large, loose, glistening black to steel grey berries, has a walnut flavour. The lighter colours come from older fish, and are the most valued. A pearly white variety, called Almas (Persian for diamond), taken from a centennial female sturgeon, is the rarest type of Beluga .

Ossetra caviar ranges from warm brown to green-gray in color, to dark blue to jet black or even white and the eggs are slightly smaller than the Beluga caviar. The golden eggs, known as Golden Caviar, were favoured by the Shahs of Iran and have a delicate mellow nutty taste.

Sevruga caviar has the smallest eggs within the Caspian Sea and is usually light to dark grey. This caviar has the strongest taste of the sea and salt with a warm, aromatic and savory flavour.

How Caviar Came to Bordeaux

Caviar first became fashionable in France with the arrival of White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik revolution. Legend has it that in 1916 a Romanoff Russian princess observed French fishermen in Saint Seurin d'Uzet cutting up their daily catch and throwing away the roe. Horrified, she explained that sturgeon’s roe was a prized delicacy and arranged for her husband to teach the locals how to make caviar. The princess accidently left her umbrella behind before proceeding on her way, which is now housed in the town’s tiny museum.

Appealling though this story is caviar has been known as a delicacy in France since the 1400s. Rabelais, an influential French writer of the time, proclaimed caviar the finest in hors d'oeuvres - he calls it caviat. He also refers to la bottargue, a red mullet roe product similar to caviar. La bottargue is the predecessor to today's Italian bottarga, the salted and air-dried roe sack from the tuna, grey mullet or swordfish.

Caviar as an Aphrodisiac

Incidentally the name caviar could originate from the the fact that the Persians were the first eaters of the tasty fish egg delicacy. They called it chav-jar, which loosely translates to "cake of power" as they believed that caviar cured a variety of ailments and improved their stamina. Caviar has been revered as an aphrodisiac for centuries – when Catherine the Great of Russia was urged to provide an heir to the throne she replied "Bring me some caviar, and tonight at supper, send me the best built of my officers."

Caviar’s reputation as an aphrodisiac is perhaps also because fish and their by-products have been linked to the myth of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, who was born from the foam of the sea. Another reason for its reputation could also be that eggs were known to be a symbol of fertility. But more than anything else, because of its highly medicinal properties, most people were led to believe that it can nourish and enhance nerve cells, hence an extremely heightened romantic instincts.

Caviar and Bordeaux?

Caviar and Bordeaux does not quite have the same ring to it as caviar and Champagne but you will be surprised to learn that Aquitaine, the region in which Bordeaux lies, actually makes its own caviar!

French sturgeon swam wild in the River Gironde until the early 1960s and fishermen used to catch large quantities of them until over-fishing led to the trade being banned in 1982. The French sturgeon is the European sea sturgeon (Acipenser sturio), also known as the baltic sturgeon and is now a protected species. They are found on the coasts of Europe, except the Black Sea and have even been known to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the coasts of North America. Like many other sturgeons, they spawn in the rivers off the coast.

Sturgeon have been around for 300 million years and little in its snout-nosed structure has changed since Triassic times. It has no scales and no bones. Instead, a row of plates ranges down its back and sides which can be lethally sharp.

The modern industry in the Aquitaine Basin is based on farmed sturgeon (a Siberian species of sturgeon) which yields caviar with fruit and nut flavors similar to Ossetra. The main production facilities are at Saint Seurin sur L’isle, near to Saint Emilion. Caviar d'Aquitaine is still madly expensive at about £50 for a 30g tin but it’s also much less scary than other substitutes, like so-called Laotian Caviar, made from catfish roe.

Vergt – The Capital of the Perigord Strawberry

Situated between Périgueux and Bergerac, in the heart of the strawberry growing area, Vergt is a lovely little bastide built by the French in the 13th century. Well-known as the heart of the local strawberry industry, Vergt houses the “Grand Marché du Cadran”, where most locally grown strawberries transit for national and international markets. In May they hold La Fête de la Fraise – the Strawberry Festival.

Fraise du Périgord Varieties

France is the second-largest European producer of strawberries after Spain. When it comes to strawberries, the Périgord region has become a symbol of both productivity and quality. There, strawberry growers benefit from the only Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for a strawberry in France, and their label, Fraise de Périgord, is a guarantee of quality. Much like the exclusively French Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), the PGI is a European Union label that ensures place of origin as well as specific growing they are grown entirely in open fields), harvesting and packaging requirements. The strawberries must have an intense flavour and express the local terroir. Harvest is by hand, between the first and third hour of daylight, when temperatures are cool. Once plucked from the plant, each berry is placed by hand in a barquette lined with a paper cushion to protect the berry on its way to market.

All the varieties are cousins, descendants of those early imports:

The Gariguette

The Gariguette is elegant, juicy, fragrant and sophisticated with a clear tart finish and is undoubtedly the favourite of the French. It is characterized by its oblong, orange-red colour.

The Darselect

The Darselect is a bigger strawberry than its compatriots, is more rustic, durable and like the Elsanta, is heart-shaped.

The Mara des Bois

The Mara des Bois is astonishingly perfumed, with an unrivalled depth of flavour. It's subtle and delicate - closer to the wild strawberry. Juicy and sweet, it is highly prized by chefs.

The Cigaline

The aroma of Cigaline (which is a variant of Gariguette) is more musky than its peers and it has a deep vermilion colour.

The Elsanta

A heart shaped strawberry with glossy, highly aromatic orange-red fruit that have a good shelf life.

Strawberries and Claret

In the 19th century people used to put strawberries in their glasses of claret to temper the heating effect of the wine. A city Alderman, having drunk deep, blamed his hangover not on the 6 bottles of claret that he had imbibed but on that “confounded single strawberry” that he had kept all night in the bottom of his glass!

In reality farmers used to spread manure around the strawberry plants during those days - which was not very hygienic. So people put strawberries into red wine to be able to eat them without any problems. Interesting, isn’t it?

Strawberries From the Perigord – and the Scots Clan of Frazer

The tiny wild strawberry or fraise des bois graced the gardens of Louis XIV in the late 17th century which probably originated in the Alps. Its intoxicating fragrance gave its Latin name - fragum - meaning fragrance. However the strawberries that we know today are descended from the little wild one and one from the New World. The New World variety was actually discovered by a Frenchman with a strawberry connection in his distant past. In 1713, the Marine Officer Amédée François Frezier returned from a voyage to Chile in the 18th century with strawberry plants (fragaria chiloensis, the Beach Strawberry), in the hold of his boat.

Frézier wrote that in Chile: "One there cultivates entire fields of a type of strawberry different than ours by their rounder leaves, fleshier and with strong runners. Its fruit are ordinarily big as whole nut, and sometimes as a small egg. They are of a red whitish colour and a little less delicate to the taste that our wood strawberries."

Frézier was a French military engineer, mathematician, spy, and explorer whose ancient surname was derived from fraise, the French word for strawberry. A story relates the surname is derived from the fact that Julius de Berry, a citizen of Auvers, was knighted by Charles the Simple in 916 for a timely gift of ripe strawberries. The Emperor gave the Fraise family (the surname was corrupted as "Frazer") three fraises or strawberry flowers for their coat of arms.

Members of the Frazer family emigrated to Scotland as members of the retinue of the French ambassador, who had been sent by Henry I of France as a gesture of friendship to Malcolm III of Scotland, the vanquisher of Macbeth. For the services against the invading Danes, King Máel Coluim rewarded the Frazers with grants of land and a coat of arms – which contained the original crest of three strawberries. The Chief of the Clan of Frazer has the traditional three strawberry flowers on his arms today.

Gateau de Basque

100 g of clack cherry jam or compote

Dough

200g butter
200g sugar
1 whole egg
3 egg yolks
335g plain flour
3 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
pinch salt
1 tbsp dark rum

Crème Patissière

250ml fresh milk
vanilla pod
3 egg yolks
75g sugar
25g plain flour

Coffee Dorure (egg wash)

1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
½ tsp coffee granules

To make the dough, place the butter in a deep mixing bowl and beat until soft. Mix in the sugar. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved in the mixture. Add the eggs & egg yolks in stages (so that the mixture doesn’t separate). Add the rum. Sift in the flour and mix it in with a spatula. When mixed, make one big ball of it and cling-film it air-tight. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours minimum.

Remove the dough from the fridge, take roughly 2/3rds of it and roll it in to a rough circular shape. Butter & flour the mould. Lift the sheet of dough and lower it in to the mould, making sure you thumb it in to the corners and up the sides of the cake tin.

To make the Crème Patissière whisk the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and whisk until the sugar dissolves. Sift the flour in and fold it in until the flour disappears. Flatten the vanilla pod with the side of your knife and cut it in half, lengthways. De-seed. Place the seeds and the pod-skin in the milk. Heat the milk in a pan but do not boil. Pour small amount of the milk (roughly ¼) in to the egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Whisk and mix. Pour the rest in. Whisk and mix. Sieve all of it back to the pan. Put it over high-heat, and whisk After it reaches boiling point keep cooking for another 2 minutes. Pour the hot mixture into a cold tray. Use an ‘ice bath’ (ie place your tray in a bigger tray that is filled with ice and water) to cool the mixture. Once cool, place the crème in the fridge until needed. Blend well with spatula before using.

Spatula in the Crème Patissière layer on top of the dough base and top with the cherry jam. Take the rest of the dough you have left over and roll out to make a lid. Place on top of the cherry jam. Using your thumb, push the edges of the lid all around to seal it to the sides and use knife to cut away any surplus dough from the edges.

Make the Coffee Dorure (egg wash) by placing all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix until the coffee granules have melted.

Pre-heat the oven to 180º. Apply a thin layer of coffee dorure to the gâteau surface. Poke a small hole in the middle as a air vent, to avoid the Gâteau Basque from forming cracks on the surface. Pop it in the oven for 1 hour. When done, leave it aside in the mould until cool and then turn out by inverting the mould with a plate on top.